Authors: Quintin Jardine
Tags: #Fiction, #Crime, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Scotland
Inhuman Remains (6 page)
‘That’s right,’ I confirmed, ‘and it’s true about his mum as well.’
It’s nice to know
, I thought,
that Frank has a little discretion after all
.
It’s nice to know
, I thought,
that Frank has a little discretion after all
.
‘How can I help you?’ Susannah Gilpin asked, then paused. ‘You’re not calling to give me bad news, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. You had a call from my aunt a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But I can’t tell you any more than I told her. I haven’t heard from Frank since Christmas.’
‘When you had a card.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you send one to him?’
‘Of course.’
‘To the hotel?’
‘No, to his home address . . . that’s to say, his private post-office box number.’
‘His private number? All my aunt has is his business address . . . and come to think of it, that’s a box number too.’
‘XC2301?’
‘That’s it.’
‘I have that too, but the one I use is XE0142.’
‘What’s the street address of the complex?’
‘I have no idea, Mrs Blackstone. Frank didn’t give it to me.’
‘But can’t you find out through your group? Frank told his mother that he’d been promoted within the organisation.’
‘We don’t have an organisation; Cinq Pistes doesn’t have any subsidiaries, or a parent company for that matter. Forgive me, but I suspect that he didn’t have the heart to tell your aunt what really happened. The year before last, at the start of the season, we had a guest at the resort. He was a Lithuanian, and his booking was made by a company in Kaunas. His name was George Macela. He and Frank struck up a friendship straight away. Frank never said as much, but I got the impression from a couple of things he let slip that Macela might have come to Davos to meet him. He used to go off on sales trips during the summer, and that year, one of them was to the Baltic states.’
‘Miss Gilpin,’ I interrupted, ‘can I ask you something personal? How close were you and my cousin?’
‘As close as you probably suspect. Nothing too intense, but he’s a very attractive little guy.’
‘He’s all that. Apart from his family connections, did he tell you anything else about his background?’
She gave a soft laugh. ‘He never stopped. He made up such wonderful stories. He told me that his father was a Thai pirate who’d kidnapped his mother when she was on holiday in the Far East, and that he’d been hanged for that and other crimes. He told me that he had an economics degree from Cambridge, that he’d worked in your Houses of Parliament. Oh, yes, and he told me that he’d done time for a multi-million-pound investment scam. Is any of that true?’
‘The part about the pirate’s pure fancy . . . as far as I understand, although I wouldn’t put much past my aunt . . . but the rest is pretty much accurate. He was an MP’s gofer and the scam wasn’t quite that big but, yes, it’s mostly true.’
‘And what about you? You are the cousin who was married to a movie star, aren’t you?’
‘Not for long but, yes, I was.’
‘He talked about you more than anything else. He said you were a few years older than him and that he’d met you a few times as he was growing up. He told me his mother went to your funeral, only you turned out not to be dead after all.’
‘Also true. Did he say anything else about me?’
‘Yes. He said there are two people in the world who scare him stiff. His mother’s one, and you’re the other, because you’re so like her.’
Jesus! A cold shiver ran through me. If Adrienne had given me a glimpse into the future, I wasn’t sure I fancied it. I made another mental note, to ask Tom if he found me scary, hoping he’d laugh at the very idea.
‘Let’s go back to the Lithuanian,’ I said, cutting that discussion short. ‘You thought his meeting with Frank might have been prearranged.’
‘Yes. It was pretty clear that they knew each other. Macela spent more time talking with Frank in the bar than he did on the ski slopes. He stayed for five days, two fewer than he’d booked, then checked out. Three days later, Frank was gone also.’
‘Just like that? Was he fired?’
‘No, he left. We were together in his chalet, the night after Macela left, and he asked me if I would consider going away with him. I said no, I couldn’t do that.’
‘You didn’t fancy him that much?’
‘Not enough to leave my husband. It’s Madame Gilpin, not Miss.
Frank acted as if he was a little disappointed, but he said he understood. A couple of days later, I came into work and the managing director asked me if I knew where he was. His office was cleared, his chalet was cleared, the keys of his company car were lying on his desk, and he was nowhere to be found.’
‘He did a moonlight?’
‘That’s a good way of putting it.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘That’s what I asked him, when he contacted me a couple of weeks later, in an email, using a hotmail address I’d never seen before. His answer was that if he’d told the boss where he was going he’d have been released without notice. There was more to it than that, though. As well as being head receptionist, I’m Cinq Pistes IT manager. Frank had a PC, as all the management-level staff do, but he also has a personal laptop. When I looked at his computer, I found that all his files, all the information he had gathered while working for the company, had been cleaned out. This is a very prestigious resort, Mrs Blackstone. You would not believe some of the clients who have passed through it. Pop stars, presidents, prime ministers, plutocrats, we’ve had them all; the rich, the famous and the infamous. Frank took all their contact details with him when he left. He transferred them to his lap-top.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because when I asked him in my reply to his email, he admitted it. We also have a central terminal where everything is backed up. The copies had been deleted also. When I challenged him about that he owned up to that also; he told me that the data would be useful to him in his new venture. I asked him what that was, and he told me: a huge new complex called Hotel Casino d’Amuseo, just outside Seville, with a satellite ski lodge in the Sierra Nevada. That’s why he cleaned out those files, he said: rather that than leave them with a company that was now the opposition.’
I was thinking as she was speaking. ‘He actually said that it was his venture?’
‘Yes. I asked him about that, and he said that he’d have “significant equity”. Those were the words he used. When I asked him if the Lithuanian was involved, he said he couldn’t name his associates in an insecure message, but I’m sure he is.’
‘Did he ever mention the name Lidia Bromberg?’
‘Mmm? No, not that I can recall. But then again, he probably wouldn’t. I’m not sure Frank ever gave up on the idea that I might leave Hector and join him.’
‘But my aunt said you thought he might be seeing someone else.’
‘I said I assumed he was. I’d be surprised if he isn’t; I don’t see him staying celibate for too long. He’s a horny guy.’
‘Have you seen him since he left Davos?’ I asked.
‘Once,’ Susannah admitted. ‘Last September. I had to go to Paris, on a computer course. I told Frank about it and he met me there.’
‘Did he say much about his project?’
‘It wasn’t at the top of our agenda, Mrs Blackstone. He mentioned it, though. He said that everything was going well and the civic authorities were eating out of their hands.’ She hesitated. ‘You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?’
‘His mother is,’ I confessed. ‘I’m worried for her. I don’t know my cousin very well, but I do know that he has an eye for trouble.’
SevenI
left all my contact details with Susannah . . . after she’d checked her records for the spelling of ‘Macela’. She promised to get in touch with me the moment she heard from Frank . . . or of him, for that matter . . . just as I promised I would keep her informed.
left all my contact details with Susannah . . . after she’d checked her records for the spelling of ‘Macela’. She promised to get in touch with me the moment she heard from Frank . . . or of him, for that matter . . . just as I promised I would keep her informed.
I turned back to my computer. The Hotel Casino d’Amuseo website was still on screen: apart from the description of the project, its menu was short and sweet. There were only four items, the normal ‘About Us’, ‘Our People’ and ‘Contact Us’, plus another ‘Investment Opportunities’. I hit the first, and waited as the page loaded.
The Hotel Casino d’Amuseo [
I read silently
] will be the new heartbeat of Andalusian culture, offering the classic mix of twenty-four-hour gambling and high-quality year-round entertainment. Our highlights include• A state-of-the-art American no-limit gaming hall, featuring roulette, blackjack, craps and slots.• Two theatres featuring spectacular shows and concert appearances by global entertainment stars.• A championship golf complex designed by Ryder Cup legend Syd Hoylake.• An associated ski-lodge in the Sierra Nevada with a private transport link for our winter guests.• A five-star, two-thousand-bedroom hotel with a hundred opulent suites, and restaurant options to suit all tastes.Your pleasure is our only concern.
‘I’ll bet it is,’ I murmured, as I clicked on ‘Our People’, ‘but there’s more to it than that.’
We are an international team of professionals in the leisure industry, with almost a century of combined experience. Our principals are• Alastair Rowland, chairman of the board. An internationally renowned hotel impresario, who has led successful ventures in Italy, France and the US.• George Macela, chief executive officer, with experience of similar ventures in Reno and Florida.• Lidia Bromberg, director and sales manager.
Doesn’t tell you much about the last two
, I thought.
Come to think of it, it doesn’t tell you much about any of them.
, I thought.
Come to think of it, it doesn’t tell you much about any of them.
I switched from the website to a search engine, and keyed in each name in turn. How many hits did I have? None. Not one of these leading professionals in the leisure industry had left a single footprint on the Internet. On the trail of George Macela, I visited sites in Reno and in Florida, where the Seminole Indian tribe have casino interests. The name drew no results on either of them. Then I realised something else: the searches didn’t even lead me back to my starting point. The ‘new heartbeat of Andalusian culture’ had yet to be detected by the worldwide web.
I returned to the d’Amuseo site and clicked on ‘Contact Us’. I found no more than the details on the slip that Adrienne had given me: no street address, only the post-office box and telephone numbers. Nothing, except . . .
The phone was a land-line and so it had to be sitting on a desk somewhere. I went back in my mind to the days when Oz and I were in the investigations business, when we were at our happiest and when our lives were at their least complicated, and I recalled finding out then that while reverse telephone directories did exist, they were restricted, and that their use was even illegal in some countries . . . unless you were a cop.
Once upon a time I knew a policeman whose territory took in St Martí d’Empúries. His name was Ramón Fortunato, and I use the past tense deliberately. Like too many men in my past, he wasn’t altogether nice, but he did have a sergeant, Alex Guinart, whom I’d met on occasion and whom I do like and trust. He’s a sub-inspector now, and since I’ve been back in town, our paths have crossed: we started by having a beer or two together . . . when he was off duty, since the restaurants don’t like people in uniform sitting at their tables . . . and soon I grew close to him, and his new family, his wife Gloria and their baby, Marte. I can turn to Alex for advice when I need it, and I did.
I called him on his mobile: from the background noise I guessed that he was in the small Mossos d’Esquadra station in L’Escala. ‘Primavera,’ he answered, having read my number as he took the call, ‘how goes it?’ He and I converse in Catalan. (I don’t use English unless I have to; for example, with another Brit. We move to Spain in our thousands, but we’re so damn clannish that most of us don’t bother to learn the languages.)
‘I’m fine, thanks, Alex,’ I replied. ‘Can you do me a favour? I’ve got a phone number, and I need to tie an address to it. It’s a business in Sevilla that my cousin’s involved with, but I only have a
poste restante
address. No problem if you can’t do it.’
poste restante
address. No problem if you can’t do it.’
‘For you I can do it. You got me your sister’s signed photograph: you’re my heroine.’ That’s true. Alex is a movie fan: he keeps the photo in his office, and makes damn sure that all his colleagues know of my family connection, even if Dawn’s career has been on hold since she and Miles had their second kid, Eilidh, a wee sister for Bruce. It does no harm to have every cop in town keeping a special eye on my son.
It didn’t take him long. ‘The address is Calle Alvarez Quintero forty-seven. I checked the local property register. But it’s not a business, it’s a residence, right in the city centre, near the town hall. It’s listed as belonging to a lady named Benitez.’
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